Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives

My family loves to watch Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives on Food Network. My parents have visited a few of the featured restaurants. Guy recently went to Prince Lebanese Grill in Arlington, Tx. We went on a Friday night to check it out. It was me, Violet, Jaley and my parents. (Matt works retail and gets out late)

I took pictures of the yummy mediterranean food for you all!

Appetizer- Large Hummus with Pita Bread.

Falafel. All entrees came with a side of hummus.

Appetizer- Thyme Pie.

One of my faves- Chicken Shawarma on a huge bed of delicious rice. I had enough leftover to take home for Jordan and Matt to try.

My parents holding Violet in front of Prince Lebanese Grill. It used to be an old sonic.

Violet especially loved smearing hummus on her mouth then slurping down ice tea. Can you tell?

Parents.

Guy Fieri's orange and yellow head & signature on the wall in the background.

More info here .

My Bridal Portraits

After all the wedding stuff I blog about. I somehow forgot to post my bridal portraits. I got them done in June 2009 by Joel and Laura Malone at the Dallas Arboretum.

This is a special one...me twirling my little girl. We were so hot!

TaTa for now!

Cooking with her Momma

Violet loves to pull up a chair and see what's going on in the kitchen. We made fruit dip together. First she stirred the sour cream in the bowl while I was at the stove. Then I poured the butter and sugar mix in with the sour cream and she stirred that too. I think you can tell she was pretty proud of herself.

I applied a retro effect to the first pic. Got it off picnik.com. Fun site.

Fruit Dip by Tina-

1 cup brown sugar
1/2 cup of butter
1 cup sour cream
3 tsp. vanilla extract

1. In a saucepan over medium heat, stir together the butter and brown sugar. Remove from heat when the butter has melted.
2. In a medium mixing bowl, whip together the butter mixture, sour cream and vanilla. Serve warm, or allow the dip to chill and thicken in the refrigerator for 2 hours.

I need 1300 dollars.

For this bike! I saw this bike in a magazine recently and thought it was a remodeled vintage bike. But no! It's a brand new bike. Here's more info, Madsen Cycles.

Picture Perfect

Sugar and Spice
(author unknown)

Sugar and spice
and everything nice
that's what little girls are made of

Sunshine and rainbows
and ribbons for hair bows
that's what little girls are made of

Tea parties, laces
and baby doll faces
that's what little girls are made of

We (matt & I) decided to get portraits done for Violet. We haven't taken her to do a special session just for her since she was 6 months old at Christmas time. After reviewing my wedding pictures I realized the photographers only got one of Violet alone. She was on the go the whole time!

I think these turned out nice. She looks beautiful. I just love those almond shaped, dark blue eyes of hers! We took her to Portrait Innovations. I highly recommend them. They were awesome and very patient. They have a package right now...you get 10 sheets of one pose for 10.00! You don't have to buy anything else if you don't want too. And no sitting fee-craziness. But I had to get prints of all her outfits! The cutie!

Violet Facts

• She is 2 years old and proud of it! (Her bday was July 7.)
  
• She loves turning ordinary things around the house into something she can slide on. It's kinda scary! I was doing my makeup the other day and she had propped an extra wood floor panel she had found on top of a stool and was standing on it preparing to slide down. She also does this with the couch cushions.
• Every time the Fresh Beat Band "Loco Legs" song comes on she gets up to dance!
• She can count to 13.
• Her favorite song to sing is Twinkle, Twinkle.
• Favorite Food is watermelon.
• She has recently started pulling a chair up to the kitchen counter to watch me cook.
• She's a blabber mouth and it's pretty easy to understand what she's saying for her age.
• Lately she has likes to fall asleep with Matt or I rubbing her back. (Gigi started that!)

She is fun! We love her!

Stop Singing

People in my family like to sing. Well, my 3 sisters and I do. My parents not so much. My dad does belt out "Amazing Grace" or "Little Red Riding Hood" every once in a while.

But us girls sing something at least once a day. Usually it's just a song stuck in our head or part of a commercial song that we like or whatever! I think Jaley sings the most out of us all. So, Violet has started saying STOP SINGING! And she says it in a loud voice. It's not very sweet.

Well, today she's watching Shrek and the donkey starts singing and Shrek covers his ears and yells STOP SINGING!! And there ya go. That's where she learned it I'm sure of it. I've seen her cover her ears like that too.

She loves that movie! She's seen all 3 of them. At least I know she's just repeating what she heard in a movie. I don't think she means it. I hope not or this little girl is out of luck!

Getting Antsy

(my cupcake/cheesecake tower)

I want to see my professional wedding pictures so bad! It crosses my mind at least once a day. Then there were so many moments or details of the wedding that I remember and just want some proof of that memory. My photographer's said it could take up to 45 days to edit. It's been 31. Not that long I know. I'm just letting all of you know that when it arrives in the mailbox I'm gonna be extremely excited!

We took Violet to see the Ringling Bros Elephant parade downtown today. Violet of course had fun. Not sure what the rest of the week has in store for us yet.

Chocolate Chip Cookies

I made these lovelies! I usually make bad, dry or burnt cookies. I'm better at cooking than baking. So, I researched a ton of options on how to make the cookies that I prefer.

They gotta be...

1. Chewy
2. Soft
3. Buttery almost caramelized taste
4. Lots of Chocolate
5. A little salty
   

I found some great tips from Emily. Check out her famous blog! I used her kosher salt and brown butter idea.

Here's the recipe I used but I browned the butter first. Enjoy!

ps. I'm having a great day! How about you? My sister Justine is here and I haven't seen her in about a month. I'm making Chicken Curry for dinner. I'll try to take good pics of it later.

Better Together

I love this song by Jack Johnson. It was one of the songs played at our wedding while guest were being seated. Enjoy!

Here are some of the lyrics, so sweet. Anybody else like Jack Johnson?

"There's no combination of words I can put on the back of a postcard
No song that I could sing but I can try for your heart
Our dreams and they are made out of real things
Like a shoebox of photographs with sepia-toned lovin'

Love is the answer at least for most of the questions in my heart
"Why are we here?" and "Where do we go?"
And, "How come we're so hard?"
It's not always easy and sometimes life can be deceiving

I'll tell you one thing it's always better when were together"